my rope solo trip up the Line

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Messages 1 - 20 of total 33 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 29, 2008 - 12:53pm PT
ramping up.
my anchor consisted of two slung blocks.
the early crux
the moment is a pissy little crusty-eyed fukin poodle.
and i'm a slobberin pitbull. (really, i'm not)
the view towards pyramid peak from the base.
steep and sustained.
the wayward paths, out there on the edge of routine, are absolutely everything.
nearing the summit roofs. you can see my first anchor a little below me. god bless the absense of rope drag.
the silliness that i come home to is why i choose to climb less and work way too much...
Chip

Trad climber
Wilmington, DE
Sep 29, 2008 - 01:24pm PT
That last shot looks like the little one is ready to go a viking! Nice TR.
Ottawa Doug

Social climber
Ottawa, Canada
Sep 29, 2008 - 01:58pm PT
Sweet TR. I love the photos of the kids. :)

Cheers,

Doug
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2008 - 02:01pm PT
that is annapurna. she's prone to avalanches. like her dad. the littlest one is makalu, the great dark one.

annapurna is trying on halloween costumes. we all might go as the beer isle.
rockermike

Mountain climber
Sep 29, 2008 - 02:27pm PT
Nice TR. Where is "the line", what's it rated. doesn't look like a throw away route.

So you carry all your rope in loops on your side. Does that work pretty well? Looks to me kind of heavy and likely to catch on stuff. I assume you are using a silent partner. Doesn't really show in the pictures.

Personally I have two or three loops at any one time and the rest of rope in rope bag back down at the belay station. But I'm not really happy with that system either.

Jello (Jeff Lowe) says he carries the whole rope in a back pack as he climbs, and claims it works well and presumable feeds well. But I can't figure out how he does his backup knots.
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2008 - 02:40pm PT
here is a closup of my setup. it all flows from right to left, which makes it easy for me to identify which rope is which.
you get used to the weight. and when i climb with a loud partner, less all this baggage, my confidence soars.
my system works well for me. as long as i keep an eye on it and manage it as i go along. it has been a learning curve for sure. the loops dont really catch too often, and when they do it just requires a slight down climb and flick, and off i go.

oh, the Line is a 5.9 route at lovers leap, california. splendid tm herbert line. those roofs at the top out are about 350' off the ground, and are basically a 5.7 monkey haul.
Hardman Knott

Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
Sep 29, 2008 - 02:47pm PT
Nice report.

I was wondering something: Do you notice the weight (and bulk) of the rope very much?

Also, any chance of rotating those pics and re-uploading them?
Shimanilami

Trad climber
San Jose, CA
Sep 29, 2008 - 02:56pm PT
No one complained to you about clogging up the most popular line at the most popular crag in South Tahoe? It must have been a slow day.
Hardman Knott

Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
Sep 29, 2008 - 03:01pm PT
Maybe Lover's Leap is knott so popular now with the ridiculous new fees and enforcement?

Also, this almost certainly had to be mid-week, eh?
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2008 - 03:07pm PT
no, this was sunday morning about 11 am. one party came up just as i was starting my first pitch. they decided not to wait.

since i run out my 70m rope, im nearly as quick as a party of two in freeing up the first pitch / belay. the rest of the cliff was crowded, so i choose the Line. i try to be conscious of other climbers and usually tend toward the more obscure (and usally more dangerous) lines on the weekends.
ricardo-sf

Sport climber
San Francisco
Sep 29, 2008 - 03:14pm PT
you've got guts rope-soloing on natural anchors ..
JuanDeFuca

Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
Sep 29, 2008 - 03:32pm PT
I rope solo free and aid faster than most.

Congrats on your climb, most on this site do not have the balls to rope solo.

Juan
DaveT.

Big Wall climber
southeast face portaledge
Sep 29, 2008 - 03:40pm PT
This is such a sketchy thread! There is so much bad info here, someone might get hurt. the norweigen guy's set up, that is such a cluster- and dangerous! Gonna break those two belay biners due to extreme crossloading in a fall, and then rip the gear loops off his harness before he hits the ground. And what a pain to set up for every pitch, time consuming and sketchy! The silent partner should be on the belay loop, not through the two points of contact, even though this is what they recomend in the manual.
Back ups belong on the belay loop too, and if you are concerned about the integrity of the belay loop, tie a second smaller one inside the first.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Sep 29, 2008 - 04:03pm PT
For about 25 years I did something somewhat similar to the hanging ropes part (I didn't use a device though); even had Metolius make a custom harness with nine full-strength side loops for the purpose. In essence - if the loops are full strength and you use figure eights instead of cloves, so you can migrate each knot in turn to the biner on your belay loop - then you can just skip the SP.

But I long ago switched over to putting the rope in a backpack and just using a grigri, and then later switched to the Edelrid Eddy.

A complete write up of what I do can be found [url="http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1610582;search_string=roped-soloing;#1610582" target="new"]here on RC[/url].
Prod

Big Wall climber
A place w/o Avitars apparently
Sep 29, 2008 - 04:24pm PT
Nice job Norwegian.

Prod.
couchmaster

climber
Sep 29, 2008 - 05:10pm PT
Uhh cause it works for him...

Thanks for sharing a fine climb and a fine day it looked like. Good on you for getting on it. As far as the biner thing goes, sounds like you should have Wren re-do the Manuel Dave cause they obviously don't know what they are talking about. I've tried opposed and reversed and the way Norwegion has it, while not as safe appearing, it works better and is what the book suggested is it not? I still don't really like the SP (nor any other solo device either).
Norwegian

Trad climber
Placerville, California
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 29, 2008 - 06:32pm PT
cynics. cynics. cynics.

i welcome the scrutiny. i myself battled thru the learning curve to achieve a level of acceptable comfort while rope soloing. now i truely enjoy it free of fear.

i admit it looks like a heavy cluster just waiting to tangle up on spikes and knobs and flakes and then wrap around your angles and spin you as it peels you from the face of the mountain. not so though. i can attest that with constant attention, which eventually becomes habitual, the sytem flows as smoothly as the typical 2 person system. well maybe a 2-person system with a mute, and slightly lazy belayer.

as far as taking forever to set up, i completed this climb in less time than i have ever done with a partner, around 3 hours for 3 pitches. no speed record, but maybe an enjoyment record. ones ability to eliminate belay setups by running pitches together, nearly makes up for the descending and reclimbing.

i wont show you my seconding belay system, as im good with one as#@&%e.

any suggestions for the seconding device?
Dirka

Trad climber
SF
Sep 29, 2008 - 06:46pm PT
Who shot the pics?
malabarista

Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
Sep 29, 2008 - 07:15pm PT
Norwegian, you bear a strong resemblance to CHONGO.
AndrewM

climber
Atlanta, GA
Sep 29, 2008 - 10:40pm PT
Dave, I've had good luck with the biners to the two points of contact with the biners opposite the way the picture has them and the silent partner on the small side of the biners. this way, the spine side of the carabiners is at the waist belt (which likely transmits most of the force in a fall) and though the carabiners are triaxilly loaded in a fall between the waste and leg loops, they are not cross loaded. the belay loop method is perfectly safe and works really well, but I've found its much easer to clip the correct rope without looking down at your device when you use the other way. I use 6 backups on lockers on my belay loop for a 60m rope, usually. Anybody ever had a Silent partner not catch a fall when it should have. I fall a ton on mine, which makes me wonder how reliable they are (this does not count slow slides on low angle slabs, stuff getting caught in the clove hitch, etc. I was more worried about the possibility of dirt or dust getting into the centrifigual clutch and causing it to not function properly. how sealed is the SP from dirt and other particles?)
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